A group of UK dental leaders visited Mumbai and Bhopal recently to meet international students in a bid to help address the UK’s workforce challenges.
The group included Professor Neil Carmichael, executive chair of the Association of Dental Groups (ADG), and Dr Gauri Pradhan and Dr Shivani Bhandari.
They visited the LNCT University in Bhopal where they were hosted by Dr Chandresh Shukla, president of the Association of Dental Surgeons of India, together with their faculty and approximately 1,000 dental students.
The visit coincided with the International Conference on Global Dentistry, held in Bhopal, which provides Indian dental professionals with a transparent and reliable platform to explore opportunities for pursuing higher education in the UK.
Prof Carmichael said: “It was inspiring to see the progress being made in preparing dental students for the Overseas Registration Examination (ORE) and the Licence of Dental Surgery (LDS) examinations.
“It was also a superb learning experience to visit Bhopal and Mumbai to meet dental students, dental school leaders, and dentists as we explore how the ORE, run by the GDC, can be boosted in terms of pace and capacity, and how the LDS can be expanded.
“It is obvious that with the right training and support, they could help ‘fill the gap’ in dental recruitment in the UK.”
He added: “The gap in the UK dentist workforce is too wide to fill just with domestically-trained dentists.
“Currently there are approximately 2,700 dentist vacancies in the NHS and the private sector that the UK is struggling to fill.
“The workforce gap will become even wider as demographic changes point to increased pressure on access to dentistry because of restricted output of UK dental schools and an ageing population with higher need patients becoming more numerous.
“The conference in Bhopal was an opportunity to plan how the UK can benefit from India’s exceptional dental talent, and how our country can offer a place for international dentists to thrive.”
Dr Bhandari said: “It was encouraging to visit LNCT University and its two dental colleges, where all teaching is delivered in English, as is standard across dental education in India.
“Despite this, overseas graduates are required to complete multiple English language assessments for GDC registration and NHS pathways.
This underlines the need for a more-proportionate and structured approach to recognising existing academic standards.”